The Texas Rangers opened a three-game series at Houston on Friday and were blown out 11-2. Corey Seager returned, which drove home how important the players currently on the roster are, more than any added at the trade deadline.

HOUSTON — Much of the talk around baseball this week, probably most of the talk, has been about who is going where at Monday’s trade deadline. The immediate concern with the Texas Rangers should be who’s on the roster this weekend.

They opened a three-game series Friday night against the Astros, their nemesis the past nine seasons as much as their rivals. They are the top two teams in the American League West.

Nothing that has transpired this season would suggest that the division race will be anything less than the sludge it’s been through the first four months. No team has pulled away, meaning that the .500-ish Rangers, Astros and Mariners are postseason contenders.

The Rangers were one of the first teams to add help ahead of the trade deadline, which arrives at 5 p.m. Monday. The Astros and Mariners are also shopping around.

But no team can completely overhaul its roster. The rosters now will largely be the same at 5:01 p.m. Monday as they are now. The Rangers’ roster as is now, especially this weekend, needs to be playoff-worthy after an 11-2 loss to the Astros that knocked the Rangers back to second place and to .500.

“The good news is we’ve been pretty good at bouncing back from games like this,” manager Skip Schumaker said.

Corey Seager returned from the injured list and played his first game of the month on the month’s final day. He started at shortstop and batted third, going 2 for 3.

He’s going to play as much as his back allows. The Rangers don’t have a formal plan to build rest into his schedule. They don’t have time to spare with 52 games to go and each one a chance to improve their playoff chances.

“We’re going to find out,” Seager said. “It’ll all depend on how I feel.”

He needs to be better, but that goes for everybody. Nathan Eovaldi, who allowed six runs in five innings Friday, needs to be better. The hitters who have produced eight runs in four games on the current road trip need to be better.

The Rangers were down 6-0 before they scored for the first time, on Joc Pederson’s team-best 20th homer of the season in the sixth. Evan Carter added a two-out RBI single later in the inning.

The at-bats weren’t bad against Astros starter Hunter Brown, who threw 104 pitches in 5 2/3 innings. He kept wiggling out of trouble, including in the first when he got Brandon Nimmo to bounce into an inning-ending double play with runners at first and second.

Brown threw three fastballs past Seager to end the third, again with runners at first and second, after the Astros had just grabbed the lead with a three-run second. They added a run in the fourth and two in the fifth on back-to-back homers by Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker.

The Rangers juggled their rotation to move Eovaldi, their Opening Day starter, into the critical series against the Astros.

“To do what I did was disappointing in my eyes,” said Eovaldi, who blamed poor mechanics for his woes.

Luis Curvelo replaced Eovaldi and, after throwing 54 pitches in two innings, the Rangers will likely replace Curvelo today. Chase Silseth, the reliever acquired Wednesday from the Angels, was not needed on his first day on the roster.

He’s excited because the Rangers have a chance to make the playoffs. They have a chance to add help before the Monday trade deadline. But the players currently on the Rangers’ roster will be most responsible for the team’s playoff chances.

_{Jeff Wilson, jwilson@alldlls.com}